If you're reading Engadget today because your favorite Iranian gadget blog is offline, here's why: a fifth undersea cable has now been reported as cut (or at least damaged), responsible for
knocking Iran and a few other million people mostly off the interwebs. Things were already looking awfully suspicious when a fourth undersea cable in the Mediterranean
was cut yesterday, and while nothing about a fifth cable being cut necessarily means some sort of sabotage is to blame, it's not exactly reassuring. Emergency measures are already underway to repair the cables, but we're not sure our inter-continental Quake III Arena deathmatch can handle any more snips.
[Via
Slashdot; image courtesy of
I Love Bonnie]
Update: Just to be clear, early reports of the entirety of Iran being offline turned out to be exaggerated or perhaps entirely false.
posted February 6th 2008 12:50PM
Well, I'm visiting your site from Iran right now!
Iran was never down, although during the last 3-4 days, I had excessive packet loss (around 30-40%) and my download speed (which should be 256kbps... ) was around 96kbps. It's getting better though...
If you can update this post with this new info... I can assure you Iran's link was never down, the link was the server for Iran's University of Science and Technology (iust) which is down for some unknown reasons!
When the repair ships recover the damaged cable ends it should quickly be obvious as to the cause of the break. I'm betting teeth marks........
I'd bet it's the Israeli frogmen. They just hate Iranians.
We're all in agreement it was the crab people. Please leave the frog men out of it.
There are lots of groups that try and control the flow of informations and just about as many that talk up a storm about freedom, liberty and our way of life.
What is the most powerful group of people on the face of the earth that regularly label information as classified just to keep it out of the publics hands and send solders of to fight and die using the excuse that we must protect our freedoms?
I suspect the cuts were only a test to see what are the secondary mechanisms of communication so that methods of disabling them could be conceived. When the fascist take over we will only be exposed to disinformation where as now we get a little more distraction than disinformation.
Fuckin' A man, fuckin' A. Goddamn Illuminati Scintologists, I should have seen it sooner.
KSW, SP's know the truth of RH because Tom tells us.
PERHAPS THER WILL BE A GIANT CRATER RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL OF THOSE CABLE BREAKS IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE!
Please... leave China's alone! I have to go there soon for work, and I need my WoW to stay away from the masaggee girls.
Could this just be more marketing for Cloverfield???
Bush: You cut me again, I ain't gonna cut no more.
THIS IS CLOVER-FIELD. THIS IS REALLY TRUE. LOOKOUT YOU PEOPLE THERE IN EUROPE.
I have a theory. The dude that fixes underwater cables probably isn't very busy. (Think Maytag man.) So he goes around and cuts the cables to create work for himself. Job security.
Here's what REALLY happened...
"It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."
So you see, there is this enormous amount of material that obviously got clogged and got so bad that the tubes all ruptured at the same time....
It was Spongebob, Patrick, Squidword, and Mr. Crabs.
Woohoo! No more Durka Durks on COD4!
Call me crazy, but most of our military communications probably goes over the wire, while some goes over Sat. How does this effect our military? Possibly it is a prelude to something more sinister....
It's the Cloverfield monster.
So I better be prepared to evacuate. :D
Seriously though...this is a bit scary. We really need to find out who or what's doing this or else...
AKBlade13
Theres nothing to worry about, the tubes were just clogged.
Either it's the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (some say it's a terrorist group, other don't), or it's a new iteration of al-Qaeda on a mission to sabotage any attempts by Middle-Easterns to access CNN.com, BBC.co.uk, or any other American/European news source deemed forbidden by radical Islamists.
I bet it is Israel. They always trying to be the one ontop in the middle east, and they are the only ones in the area that have their own submarines
You mean they're the only ones that ADMIT to have subs, right?
No as in they are the 4th most powerfull army in the world and is the size of jew jersey. and the most Sofisticated defence force in the area by far thank to the USA
Anyone ever consider it could be UFO's? Oh yeah I forgot they dont exist. Tell that to 30,000+ years of evidence.
Attention RIAA and MPAA, you can cut all the lines you want. You ain't never going to find the Piratebay servers!
JJ Abram's cloverfield was a warning
Have none of you heard of the Iranian Oil Bourse which was scheduled to open between Feb 1st and Feb 11th.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/irans-oil-bourse-could-topple-the-dollar/
Umm, doesn't Iran own a submarine or two?
cloverfield monster.
oh mike, we really heard enough of this one when the 4th cable got cut..
so sorry, this is the first time I actually commented on an engagdet article. I was fresh off watching cloverfield, too. I searched the first page for a mention of 'cloverfield'; didn't realize there was a second page to the comments.
Cthulhu! Get out of my interwebs!
WOOO GO CAUCASIAN TERRORISTS!! LETS SHOW THE MIDDLE-EAST WHO'S BOSS!
holy shit... i just realized
maybe the US GOVT is doing this in preparation for war...
all your packets are belong to us?
Looks like I might be right... I suspected al qaeda was behind the original cable breaks. Seems a little more likely now. I wonder if the terrorists do background checks on their recruits.
Shouldn't that be "Cut my undersea cables seven times, shame on you. Cut my undersea cables eight or more times, shame on me?"
Could that be to change the systems and install better ways to spy on the communication systems. They say it is cut-off.. hmmm!
Not sabotage? Most likely some terrorist plot. Do they think some swordfish is going around cutting the cables. Or maybe the voltage flowing through the cables are fooling sharks into thinking the cables are big fish to bite.
I hope they find out who or what is doing this crap and get some countermeasures set up.
Only 32.